My dear Lord Will, you are young, but you know the world. They left the house together, late at night. I tell you, quite late, after midnight. He, a man who was known to be--well, not the safest for women: and she a country girl of nineteen--oh, very well able to take care of herself, but as silly and ignorant as they usually are: and--I know no more.’ Mrs. Swinford threw up her hands again, with the dazzling rings. There was a thrill and tremble in her whole frame with the excitement of the story, which was so elaborately false yet so nearly true. The young man had not seated himself a second time. He stood leaning upon the mantelpiece, his head bent, looking down upon the blazing fire. ‘And you?’ he said, ‘you allowed a girl to go out of your house like that--a girl, unprotected?’ ‘What could I do?’ said Mrs. Swinford. ‘I was not her keeper, neither was I in command of affairs. I tell you that my husband insisted----’ ‘For the marriage, you said, for a marriage--that was very different.’ ‘Ah, you are _difficile_! And she, a hot-headed girl full of her own attractions, do you think she would be restrained----’ ‘From leaving home with her lover in the dead of night?’ ‘Her lover!’ cried Mrs. Swinford, with the tingling laugh; ‘her lover!’ ‘Was he not her lover? For heaven’s sake say what you mean.’ There was a little pause again, through which her laugh ran on, as if she could not stop it when once it had begun. Lord Will was the first to speak. He said: ‘All this is very curious and dramatic and strange; but the one question of my uncle’s marriage is, after all, the chief thing. I don’t think my father ever entertained any doubt. It is in the peerage----’ ‘That is no proof,’ said Mrs. Swinford sharply. ‘I know; but still--my father was sent for at his death. There was no suspicion. I have heard that it was a _mésalliance_, but that is all I have ever heard.’ ‘Your father arrived when he was dying, had no communication with him, nor had any of his true friends. She kept them away. Lord Will, perhaps we have talked on this question long enough; it is no matter to me, it is only you who are affected. If there is money involved it is of the more consequence. You will require proof of the marriage before you do anything further. That is all you have to do. Ask her to send in her certificates, child’s birth, and all that. Women of that class are very wary; they generally see after their papers. I have thought it over; I thought it all over before I made up my mind to speak to you. I felt that I could not allow what might be a great wrong to be done to the family of one who was once a dear friend----’ Mrs. Swinford put her handkerchief lightly to her eyes; it was scarcely substantial enough to have imbibed one tear. And there were perhaps other reasons why tears would have been out of place; but, had they existed at all, they would have been not dew, but fire. XXIX